#i really like what it considers story wise and it feels very fleshed out and real and i fucking

[chadsuke]

Books Read in 2022:

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Vol. 1 by Piero Karasu & Harutsugu Nadaka (2021)

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Vol. 2 by Piero Karasu & Harutsugu Nadaka (2021)

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Vol. 3 by Piero Karasu & Harutsugu Nadaka (2022)

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady Vol. 4 by Piero Karasu & Harutsugu Nadaka (2022)

A Wicked Tale of Cinderella’s Stepmom by Kiarne & Sunset (2022)

A Wicked Tale of Cinderella’s Stepmom by Kiarne & Sunset (2022)

A Wicked Tale of Cinderella’s Stepmom by Kiarne & Sunset (2022)

Roxana: How To Protect the Female Lead’s Older Brother by Kin, Juniljus & Ji-Yeon Baek (2021)

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat Vol. 1 by Sakaomi Yuzaki (2022)

[ID: Covers of the aforementioned manhwa and manga. End ID.]

[creation-help]

Advice and tips on how to make your character feel more genuine/real

- Pettiness and shallowness. Obviously it can manifest in different ways, but IRL everyone has at least one or two little things that they're a bit surface level and "Just because!" about. Be it clothes, how they do certain rituals, what color m&ms they prefer ect ect. It can be little details or even major characteristics, and depending on which (and what) they are, it can be really telling about the character! Plus, it just adds a little extra depth and fun. Some examples including but not limited to: Being fussy over getting their clothes wet or dirty, only preferring some items because they look good, insisting on doing some action or tradition exactly a certain way, disliking an aspect of a thing or a person because they just don't like it, and so on. Obviously the big worldview points like morality and beliefs are very important, but when you've figured those out, take a moment to think about the smaller, everyday things your character feels about the world around them. No matter how good or wise a person is, they'll still always have some little thing that they can't give some profound noble answer to. Use this to your advantage to explore your character's shortcomings or flaws!

(In the same vein, Pet peeves is another detail that can flesh out a character!)

- How does your character perceive things? What do they notice about people first? How would they talk about, or describe another person to someone, if asked? How would they describe themself? And why? Just some things to consider. If your character maps out all the little details and deeply analyzes everything they see, it'll show in their interactions very differently than, for example, if they have the perception of a cabbage and are more oblivious than the love interest in a teen drama that the writers are stretching out for five seasons for no reason. Ykno.

- Additionally: what's their opinion of the people around them? Or if you've already mapped that out, what's their opinion of people they've never met before, or people who aren't in their immediate bubble, friends of friends, relatives of relatives, neighbours, or celebrities, mythical/historical figures and so on. Delve into hypotheticals sometimes, it can help you exercise your knowledge of the character. Even if none of these encounters or situations would happen in Canon.

- I'm sure you've already figured out what your character is most passionate about, ykno, whatever drives the story and impacts their relationships with other characters. But how about stuff they really don't care to think about? Just shrug? Not interesting? Doesn't pay attention to this? What is low on their priorities? It doesn't have to be negative (but can be!), it can just be "Meh", or something your character hasn't even noticed before, simply because it's not in their thoughtscape to think about.

- Does your character have any of those "What? I thought everyone did that/thought that/was like that!" - things? What do they take for granted, or weren't aware isn't a universal experience? Did they have a wildly different experience with something that most other characters hadn't even thought of? And yes I understand this is good for exploring trauma and other angsty things, but besides the obvious, think about maybe something that could be related to your character's species/living environment/abilities/opinions ect. This is great for exploring cultural differences, and anything that takes place in a fantasy setting. Very useful for villains and heroes alike! It's insightful. Everyone has small little perceptive differences or big and small thoughts that for some reason just haven't been properly challenged yet. Or brought up even. For whatever reason. Explore maybe what that reason could be, and figure out why it's been unchallenged for so long.

- Imperfections. Little divergences. It's fully possible to write a compelling and genuine feeling character using just archetypes, if you really explore them deeply. And whether you're doing that or not, think about the lines and molds you've set your character into, and let them spill out of them a little bit. Can be one huge aspect or one teensy detail, but make some diversion. Some crack in the picture. Doesn't have to be a flaw but can be! Just have some little aspects that set them apart and make the character themself. Get weird with it. Getting weird is one huge way you can truly make a character stand out and feel more unique and, oddly enough, genuine and real. Actual people have little oddities or things that don't line up with everything else about their person. And again it doesn't necessarily have to be anything big or shocking, in fact I'd argue it's even better if sometimes it's just a small, very ordinary, humanizing detail. Maybe unexpected, or maybe just something that doesn't factor into the surface image your character has. Think about characters similar to yours that you see often. What traits do they all share, or most usually have? Think about the kinds of people your character is inspired by. What are they often like? Make a diversion from that. Make multiple even? It can be the most random thing but think about it, even if you threw a dart at a wall of sticky notes, really chew out what this little thing says about your character. And focus on little cracks, imperfections, diversions and other odd details of your character. Over time they can grow bigger, or maybe not.

- Keep a clear picture of who your character is. Sounds obvious but I'll elaborate. Your character will obviously change and develop over the time you're working on them and whatever story events take place but I think it's very important to keep in mind who they fundamentally are. Basically I'm saying that try to keep them in character, yes even if you did drastic character development, you can still show that it's the same person in other ways even if one of their core traits was flipped. Be aware of what things will never change about your character no matter what they'd go through. Keep some consistency. Consistency matters alot in making a character seem genuine and, ykno, a good character. Even if that consistent trait is that they're inconsistent! The character can be that, yes, but as their creator, you should still keep sights of what's consistent for this character, you feel? If your character is a glunk of slime that slips out of it's container constantly and subsequently molds into whatever situation it gets put in, that's not really a character, that's.. Idk, plot device..? I know this may sound contradicting to my previous point but I fully think that, and this one can and should coexist.

You need to simultaneously be aware of the ways your character will differ from something and be fluid, and the ways your character will not bend, and cannot become. It's simply a matter of knowing their boundaries and restrictions, knowing which way they can lean and which way not. Obviously this'll be up to you as their creator, bc yeah you're allowed to drastically edit your character if you feel like it's for the better, but try to commit to that change then. Don't let the character slip from your hands, or let the story bend them into whatever shape it needs to make the plot go forward. Your character, and more importantly you, should be in control of that.

I emphasize the point of you controlling your character and not the other way around also. I've seen some character owners slip into "Well it's just what the character would do! I can't help it, it'd be out of character if they didn't do x!" even if the thing is completely awful, doesn't fit, or would ruin an aspect of the story. A smart writer will know how to work with your character's traits in a way that prevents them from running off the tracks and becoming their own little gremlin, while also complying with the story. Respect your character's.. Character, while also respecting yourself and the point of the story. This is even more crucial if it's a roleplay character, by the way..

I'm just saying, find ways to write the story in cooperation with your character. That means knowing what situations to avoid and which ones to steer for, in order to keep your character functioning with the plot and other characters. Sometimes you simply have to prevent some event from happening, or some characters from ever meeting, for the sole reason that it wouldn't make the story work the way it should. Or the way you want it to. You hold the pencil, be aware of what that means

[givemeanaccountalready]

The Anti-Team 7, Formally Known as Team 6 (Komorebi)

First, I’d like to thank the wonderful @pumiih for drawing my little heathens. You made them (and Naruto) so beautiful.

It’s kind of funny. I picked the number 6 as their team number because Naruto would be the sixth Hokage (Kakashi is serving as Tsunade’s Jounin Commander for now) in my little AU world. I then learned that Team 6 was the number given to Jiraiya’s team with Minato and I thought, “Well, that’s a better reason to keep it as Team 6,” so here I am.

The Word doc that I made to actually plot this thing out to a degree has the title above for the Naruto-sensei arc. That’s somewhat touched on briefly before Naruto meets his team in the flesh, where he’s joking with Sakura that “This is their Sasuke, this is our you, and this is our me,” as the two of them look over the files Tsunade gave him. And he’s technically not entirely wrong about it lol. They just have really superficial connections to the OG Team 7. I even asked Pumiih to put them in the same order as the Team 7 picture. I haven’t posted it yet, but fic will be called Komorebi which translates to, “sunlight filtering through trees,” and I liked the imagery of that, so that’s the name.

Anti-Sasuke: Chitose Hyuuga 🍬 (prestigious clan with magic eyes)

Anti-Naruto: Kaito Isobe 🪁 (orphan, known troll)

Anti-Sakura: Tsurigane Kashiwagi 🔔 (girl)

I feel slightly bad for reducing Tsuri to that but I��m laughing too hard at the summary to care. She is probably the easiest anti-parallel to spot. Whereas Sakura didn’t really have an overarching goal until the Forest Death scene, Tsuri is the only one on Team 6 with an overarching dream/goal. She wants to gain Kage level strength, even though she doesn’t necessarily want the hat, and go down in history as a legendary kunoichi. Tsuri pretty much has a five year plan, meanwhile, Chitose is doing this ninja stuff because it’s what Hyuuga do, and Kaito is simply trying to earn a living until he finds something else that he likes. There is enough internalized misogyny in this girl to power a small village. You can thank her parents for that one. Tsuri despises fan girl behavior and she even lost a friendship over her best friend choosing to like and giggle over a boy. Eventually, she’ll reconcile with her, but for now, no. Very stubborn, very bull-headed, and very driven, Tsuri does not do things by halves.

Chitose is probably the least anti-parallel of the three, since her story revolves around bonds just like Sasuke’s had. Whereas Sasuke formed new bonds within Team 7 and wanted to protect them until Itachi and the Sound 4 happened, causing him to think he needed to sever his bonds and fuel his hatred to achieve his goals, Chitose’s story is a bit different. She wants to form bonds with others, and while she doesn’t have a deeply traumatic backstory, Chi definitely has some serious hang-ups stemming from the divide between the main branch and cadet branches of the Hyuuga family. She is not close to Neji or Hinata, but she has seen them grow into stronger, happier individuals because of their teammates and the work they do, and she wants that growth too.

While she does not have the Caged Bird Seal, Chi knows that’s only due to who her sensei is and not because the clan has changed its mind. Hinata is doing her best to change the Hyuuga’s ways after the war, but at the very beginning of the story, it seems more unlikely than not. Chi and the rest of Team 6 are about 6 years younger than Naruto so Chi couldn’t have possibly been sealed on Hinata’s third birthday like Neji was. She was going to get the Caged Bird once she either finished the Academy and became a kunoichi or sometime later if she had failed. The only reason she didn’t get sealed immediately after passing the graduation exam is because a certain someone told Hiashi that Naruto was being considered as a possible jounin leader and Hiashi wisely decided to hold off on it. The Hyuuga compound is still standing… for now.

Kaito is my lil goblin. He’s a snot-nosed brat whose fear of losing another loved one and screwy sense of self/self-worth resulted in his constant trolling and mouthing off. A little hater who graduated the Academy with two full time enemies and one part-time enemy, an unrequited rival (unrequited on Kaito’s part, he doesn’t want it). Like Naruto, he is stubborn and very perceptive of others’ emotions, but while Naruto clawed his way to acceptance and changing the way things are, Kaito is more content to crash and burn in the status quo. As a result, he does not have any big dreams or goals. If Tsurigane’s story is about learning to constructively use strength for herself and on behalf of others, and Chitose’s is about learning to let others in without making herself small to accommodate them, then Kaito’s story is about finding internal peace and taking the chance that the past won’t repeat itself.

I definitely spent too much time trying to think of what I wanted the other rookies besides Team 6 to look like. There’s three other rookie teams, and Shikamaru is the jounin leader for one. I just hope that they’ll be liked when I have enough written that I’m comfortable posting so I don’t have too much dead time in-between chapters.

And because I can… NaruSaku for the main ship. Team 6 ships it.

[miimo96]

Thoughts on V3NOM

This 1 feels very Rushed to say the least, like aside from all the cool backstory with Knull and the Symbiotes, this 1 feels the most Weaker Story wise, like Don't get me wrong it's a GOOD movie, but in my opinion, it could've been WAYY better.

Like there are so many things that I feel could've been expanded upon more if given more time, like the fact that Eddie doesn't even feel like a character anymore, instead now being a Plot device that is just meant to get “Venom” from point A to point B, to the fact that shit that feels like it's gonna go somewhere DOESN'T, to even the fact that Knull, THE MAIN VILLAIN OF THE MOVIE, doesn't even FEEL like a looming threat, which is really BAFFLING in my opinion; I haven't read King in Black o I don't  really know that much about him but if you tell  me that he's supposed to be the BE All END All type of Villain, than I expect to see it, like this is supposed to be the GOD of Symbiotes yet the “Scariest” thing this guy's done, is just sit in a chair Menacinly and send minions the entire movie. (I guess bro took a page out thanos's book on how to NOT be Menacing) like I wanna see what exactly makes him So terrifying to begin with. 

Another thing that bothered me is how WASTED everything feels, like this is supposed to be the FINAL Movie, yet things don't feel fulfilled or resolved, so many questions are lingering still, Eddie's relationship with Anne hasn't gotten better, in fact she feels like an Afterthought at this point, and characters and Plot points that feel like their going to have a Major impact, DON'T. Oh and does even get me STARTED on how the Symbiotes were handled in this movie, like here I was, ready to get excited to see Lasher, Toxin, and  the other Symbiotes make their Debut and hopefully kick some ass, and they all get Effing WASHED like yesterday's laundry, LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL F%*K Sony!? Also how you gonna give us effing Agony before SCREAM, the better female and better looking Symbiote in my opinion.

And another thing, im sorry but am I the only 1 that seems to remember that the Symbiotes have the ability to make clothes, like there's a scene in the Trailer where Eddie's wearing a Black tux and i originally thought that this was their way of showing that the Symbiote made him clothes, which isn't really seen that much,other than a few cartoons incorporating it along the Insomniac Spiderman games, and I thought this would be the PERFECT opportunity for that, but No, instead it was just cuz venom knocked a dude out and Jacked him of his clothes, which IS funny but C'MON!

1 thing I absolutely Loved tho about this movie was how they Humanized The Symbiotes, like they actually feel like peaceful creatures who are just trying to look for a New home, and people tend to forget about that, like aside from OG Venom and Carnage the Symbiotes aren't really all that Evil, they're just misunderstood and I'm really glad Sony chose to focus on that, So ya earn a Gold star there Sony, however, I just wish they had more time to flesh out the Symbiotes because aside from venom, they LITERALLY almost all feel and act the same, Maybe if they had more personality I'd like them more but so far, they literally either all SOUND the same, or ACT the same, and that's kinda sucky considering each Symbiote in the comics Has their own personality, like Venom is a goofball who only really is Evil because of his Hatred towards Spiderman, other than that he's just a chocolate loving monster who loves surf the Web and Apparently Sing Strangers in Night, Meanwhile Carnage on ther hand is a PSYCHOPATHIC killer, who ENJOYS what he does, he enjoys KILLING just because he can, and it really shows if ya read Absolute Carnage; I didn't really enjoy how they handled Carnage in Venom 2 mainly because I'm So used to Carnage acting a certain way and because I mainly know Carnage through the original spider man Ps1 game and through the Original Spider man 90s animated show, but it was better than nothing I guess. ^^; (Still, I just WISH he didn't SOUND like that, because I'm sorry that's NOT Carnage)

The last 2 movies felt more like HOMAGES to whatever came before, mainly 90s stuff from Lethal Protector, to Maximum Carnage, all the way to the Life foundation, they all just really felt like something you'd probably see back then in the early to mid 2000s, just some fun movies to watch with Simple direction, and Ok Storytelling, you MAY not get it, but you'd STILL enjoy it, THIS ONE however, felt more like it was trying to be more modern, and trying to setup too many things as possible, while also leaving you kinda *Disappointed* to say?  I don't know it just felt like it was missing something and I don't really like that because while the last 2 movies felt complete and actually did resolve things, this 1 just felt more like that 1 spongebob scene in the lost episode, where patchy just looks at the Tv and says “That's it?” It feels like uh like a Hollow shell compared to the last ones. That isn't to say it's a BAD movie, it's just not a FULFILLING one, it feels like there's more left, especially with that Shadowy figure we kept seeing talk to general Strickland the entire movie, and we might Never see what that more left was, considering this is the LAST movie. If I had to Rank these films,�� it would be in the most Bland and usual way possible,  with Venom 1 being in 1st place, Venom 2 being in 2nd place, Venom3 being in 3rd place, all movies are GOOD, it's just that this 1 feels the most Weaker compared to the others; But anyway that's just what I think, what about You, did you enjoy Venom the Last dance, or were you Disappointed ?

[lollytea]

Unfortunately due to TOH being cut short by Disney a lot of character arcs and more storyline could not be fully fleshed out and finished as Dana had to wrap up everybody’s story in just a few episodes

I'm fully aware that Disney's intervention is responsible for a lot of the plotlines getting suffocated. Which is why I don't think it's fair to go harassing crew members with "why didn't THIS happen??" and all that, because nobody really knows what they endured working on those final episodes and how much they had to cut and rewrite. But from things Dana has said, it was likely a very stressful and exhausting experience. So I don't like to make assumptions about the crew being incompetent. Nobody knows how the season WOULD have turned out if they had been granted full creative freedom and breathing room to develop it to their hearts content.

However, me not directing personal ire towards the crew doesn't mean that I think that the show is immune to criticism. Its flawed. It might not be entirely the crew's fault but that doesn't mean we can't talk about how it's flawed. If anything, I think acknowledging and dissecting its weaknesses is a good learning opportunity for what we should consider when creating our own stories.

Season 3 is a bit of a mess. There's good stuff. There's some less than good stuff. I think ultimately, as a story about Luz, King and Eda, it knocks it out of the park. When they were left with no other option, they decided to prioritize the writing of their three protagonists and I think that was the correct choice.

But I've been thinking about the three specials and how they stand on their own, quality wise, and honestly, there's valid criticism to be said that is completely unrelated to the shortening.

Bear in mind that the crew has known since Follies that the show was getting cut short and they needed to start wrapping up loose ends. So it's not like they started writing Thanks to Them believing it was the first of 20+ more episodes. They knew that they were going to be writing a 40 minute special. So the execution had to be tight, concise and satisfying, right?

Well...it was....weird. Definitely fun. Good for fan service. The main hook was the witch kids navigating the human world in their dorky witchy way. And initially, that was enough. But once the novelty of that wears off and we focus on the plot of the special, what do we have left?

Thanks to Them is very guilty of lore baiting. Dropping in stuff that they know damn well that they're never going to elaborate on, leaving the audience with a feeling of intrigue that is never going to be satiated.

I personally think that is just bad writing. They knew they didn't have a full season 3 and rather than rewrite the means of which the hexsquads finds answers, they still made the choice to drop in what are most likely vague ideas from the initial draft.

I think, if they had no intention of developing it in future specials, there was no point to that scene of Masha telling the Wittebane story. It was just...filler. To stretch out the running time. Which is....kind of precious. Only 40 minutes. If you're obsessive enough about lore, you already knew the story from the Hollow Mind paintings. That scene was for casual viewers. Which is useless, because there's no point in casual viewers learning about Evelyn and Caleb because it never went anywhere.

Also. I personally think that if there was any value to learning the Wittebane lore without making it plot relevant, it would be for the sake of character development. We wanted to know how the kids would react to this knowledge.

Well how did they react?

*Shrug* They seemed a little unnerved but they kinda forgot about it the second they got off the hayride.

So what was the point of all that? What was the point?

Is it because we wanted "Goodbye, Evelyn," to be more of gut punch?

Was it worth it? Was "Goodbye, Evelyn" worth it? We know fucking nothing about Evelyn.

I think the rebus was a stupid and lazy means for the kids to discover Titan's blood. You introduce this mysterious object that was hidden under the floorboards and then you just use it as a plot device.

When the kids uncover the rebus and find the secret code inside, the viewer is not thinking about how it can be used as a means to an end (finding blood) The viewer is thinking "what the fuck is that thing and how did it get there and how did Flapjack know it was there?"

Questions that will not be answered <333

ALL IM SAYING is that I'm sure the crew could have come up with another way for the kids to have a Titan's blood treasure hunt. Maybe they could have dug a little more into the history of Gravesfield and follow leads on weird things happening on this one spot in the graveyard (which turns out to be because there's magical energy there, revealed when Luz realizes she can use glyphs)

I just think that if you're gonna leave the mystery box a mystery, you shouldn't have included it.

And I know. Its subtle storytelling. There's elements of what could have been a far more complex story and they're leaving hints of it here and there.

Well the thing about that is I think the hints are very unsatisfying and weaken the episode's plot significantly.

Also I don't think they should get to just pick and choose what parts of the lore are subtle and what parts are ham-fisted.

YES we are going to be reminded like three times that Flapjack is being secretive and hiding things from Hunter.

NO we are never going to get a payoff for that because he gets shanked and dies first.

BUT!! BUT!! If you squint, its IMPLIED that Flapjack belonged to Evelyn and blah blah blah

You don't get to rub things in the audience face and then choose to be all subtle about it at the last minute. Pick one or the other.

Anyway....I think they could have written Thanks to Them as more of an intriguing and suspenseful horror mystery where they spend forty minutes gathering clues and everything finally clicks together at the very end. That's not what we got.

We got a very weak attempt on the Hexsquad's part to be little detectives, but like a minute of screen time was devoted to them dicking around in a library, a costume shop, and a zoo.

I don't think we can blame the shortening for this.

[yukidragon]

I love to hear more of your headcanons on Bo in Mafia AU! Also what would happen if Bo's puppy doesn't want to be his in that AU?

It's been a while since I touched on the Mafia AU hasn't it? And that was before I created my version of Bo's puppy, Barbie too. This ask does make me wonder how their interaction might go in this AU.

In the main universe, Barbie's attraction towards Bo, at least at the start, was pretty shallow, all things considered. He was more like a fun adult toy that she grew fond of until eventually that fondness grew into genuine love. It's hard to blame her though, since he quite literally is a toy. She pretty much treated him like many people treat AI bots - a fun diversion, but nothing to take seriously. It was only when he forced her to realize that his feelings are just as real as hers that she truly saw him as a person.

Barbie is a self-proclaimed misanthrope. She's not fond of humanity in general. She can't stand noisy places or being in crowds. It takes a while for her to warm up to people, which leaves her with few people she cares about outside of her immediate family. It's also why she's very fierce if someone hurts her family. Fictional relationships were the closest thing she was interested in when it came to romantic or sexual pursuits.

In the Mafia AU, Bo is an actual human being, even if he's got some pretty distinct canine features. More than that, he's a wise guy working for a mafia boss (Jack); not really someone who is safe for normal people to get involved with. Add in Barbie's default mistrust of people, and Bo in this universe is going to have a steep uphill battle to overcome in order to win his puppy's heart.

Since I've started fleshing out the King family more, it would be good to reexamine their roles in this Aphrodesia-influenced AU, don't you think? It'll be especially interesting to consider how they'll react to Alice being kidnapped by a human trafficking ring, and the scars that incident left behind on her when she finally sees them again.

Content warnings: this post will contain mentions of violence, torture, human trafficking, SA, drugs, and sex. Overall I'll try to keep any uncomfortable descriptions to a minimum, and ramp up the spice where I can. Remember, Something's Wrong with Sunny Day Jack, DachaBo, and Aphrodesia are all stories for Adults Only. NSFW elements will be touched on!

Traffic Stop

The broad strokes of the AU are basically the same as from the first post. Alice and her family originally lived a normal, happy life, far and away from the crime-invested city of St. Valen's. She and Ian grew up as childhood friends. Things seemed to be going down the same route it did in the regular universe, with puppy love developing between them that might turn into something more.

The divergence happened when they were both still in high school. There was a person going around their school, looking for acting talent. It was somewhat shady. Alice wasn't sure about going, but Ian wanted, no, needed to seize the opportunity to achieve his dream. The talent scout remarked that he had a nice face, both of them did. They would go far. They just had to audition.

It was flattery that Ian couldn't resist.

Of course Ian's mom wasn't going to let him do such a thing, so they had to sneak out. Ian didn't want to risk his mom finding out from her parents, so he convinced Alice to lie to her parents that they'd be out with friends.

As you might suspect already, this audition was a trap sprung by human traffickers. They pick young and vulnerable people who look like they can't fight back, lure them someplace isolated, nab them, and ship them off someplace to be sold for, well, less than savory purposes. While initially both of them were caught in the trap, Alice managed to help Ian escape.

Ian's greatest regret was that he ran away, that he didn't stay to rescue Alice like she did him. Even though she told him to run, to get help, Ian still felt like a coward. It was made worse when by the time he returned with authorities, the traffickers were already gone.

Needless to say, this incident still haunts Ian to the present day, crushing him under the weight of his guilt.

This incident replaces the cheating Ian does in the main universe, and Alice being trafficked replaces the SA incident she went through. While Alice mercifully didn't get SA'd during the trafficking, she was a victim of a "red room" after being taken and sold in St. Valen's. A "red room," for those unaware, is a type of livestream on the dark web, where innocent victims are tortured according to an audience's bids.

I won't go into detail about all the horrors Alice experienced, since the scars speak for themselves. Fortunately, she managed to be clever and lucky enough to escape. Luckier still, she managed to stumble into a member of the Sunny Family, and said family just happened to have a vendetta against the gang that was behind the trafficking.

St. Valens is full of people who showed up out of nowhere, and others who don't ask or care where they came from. There's plenty of corruption, people looking the other way, and shady deals going on. The Sunny Family might be relatively better than most crime families, but at the end of the day, they're pretty shady. They helped her out by rescuing her, even paying her hospital bills and taking her under their wing, so now she owed them.

Alice could contact her family, have them pay back her hefty debt... or she, now an 18 year old adult, could do some favors for the family. Her medical bills were insane - St. Valen's isn't exactly kind to the less fortunate when it comes to medical care - it would bankrupt her family.

It was a classic hustle, presenting a vulnerable person like Alice with potentially devastating consequences, or an out by someone who is wearing a kind and smiling face. I'm inclined to have that representative of kindness from the family be Mama Shine, who was so kind and empathetic, just wanting to help Alice after she went through so much. Working for them wouldn't be that big a deal, especially since they were the ones who rescued her and all the other trafficking victims...

That's the classic Sunny Family con. They smile, act kind, extend their gloved hands to help, offering salvation to poor souls down on their luck. They are then indebted to the family. They need the family. Alice needed a prescription of drugs that they could give to her regularly for all her pain, far cheaper than the healthcare system would.

Shine had taken an interest in Alice, helping her while she was rehabilitated in the hospital. She could've been the one who Alice ran into that night when bloody and desperate for help. Shine is so caring, just like Alice's mother, having that same warm motherly aura. So trustworthy and kind...

It was a far less violent trap that ensnared Alice a second time into this world of crime, but this time she didn't realize the cage was around her, or that she couldn't leave it, until she was in far, far too deep. Her vulnerability was exploited, and she signed a contract that she shouldn't.

The King family were so relieved when Alice finally contacted them... but confused when she told them she couldn't go home. She was receiving medical treatment and needed to stay in the city, and she had debts to pay...

Naturally, her family isn't going to take this without a fight. The King family immediately took a road trip to St. Valen's to see Alice at the hospital.

Lycoris is a fierce mama bear, and she was enraged when Alice was kidnapped, doing everything in her power to find her baby. So despite Shine acting kind and friendly, she was ready to throw down from the word go. Lycoris is a small lady, but she can be very scary, though, sadly, not as scary as an entire crime family.

None of the King family were happy with what had happened to Alice, the debt she had to repay, or that she had already signed a deceptively scary contract. However, the Sunny Family is the most dangerous crime family in the city for a reason, and the King family were in over their heads.

Not that the King family knew they were facing a crime family. The Sunny Family has a reputation to uphold after all. They're a family-run business. Many details were left out or unspoken, all to hide what was really going on behind their squeaky clean image.

The King family did involve the legal system, but that was a failure. The Sunny Family owns the police in St. Valen's. The police just informed them that everything was legal, Alice is an adult who can make her own choices, and there's no better family to work for than the Sunny Family. Plus, Alice was going to need the drug they provided for the rest of her life, so wasn't this a sweet deal anyway? They should just feel grateful that she was rescued. Not a lot of trafficked teens are...

In the end, the King family was powerless, and Alice became a member of the Sunny Family with a debt that seemed never ending.

Barbie vs the World

Needless to say, Barbie was pretty much spitting nails about the whole thing. Even if the Sunny Family was putting on a smiling face and rescued her older sister, so generously providing Alice with needed medical treatment for the foreseeable future, she raged against the entire situation. Unfortunately, being a teen younger than 18 at the time, she was left with a feeling helpless and frustrated. She raged at her parents for "giving up" on bringing Alice home safely even though they didn't have a choice.

Naturally, with Barbie not being the biggest fan of the Sunny Family, she's going to be wary of anyone working for them. Bo has quite the reputation in the city of St. Valens as their enforcer, so he's got quite a steep uphill climb to take if he wants to earn his puppy's love.

Barbie was already the type to play fast and loose with laws, and this entire affair killed all faith she had in the justice system. In the main universe, she's a programmer and hacker. In this universe, she focused more on the hacking aspect. She snuck behind her parents' back, doing very illegal things online to get more money to pay back the debt to the Sunny Family and free her big sister.

So, years later, while Alice gained experience in the Sunny Family as a sniper, Barbie became a skilled hacker, going by many aliases online. By her early/mid-twenties, she used a particular handle when making things difficult for the Sunny Family - Clown Killer. She became quite notorious among the Sunny Family, and a thorn in their side online.

Of course, Barbie had to prioritize not getting caught above any victory. If the Sunny Family knew that she was the one making things hard for them, it would put Alice in danger. Her primary focus with her hacking and other shady dealings online was to get money to repay the debt, but whenever they would just miss repaying the full amount, or something else tacked onto it to keep Alice in that debt, Barbie couldn't help but want to vent her frustrations as Clown Killer.

Barbie has learned quite a lot about the members of the Sunny Family, but could never quite gather enough evidence that would convict any of its bigger members. Their reputation was so squeaky clean. She especially had an axe to grind against Shine, who never once lost that "sweet and gentle" motherly aura while making it clear to her all those years ago that Alice wouldn't be coming home. She knew behind that sweet smile was a ruthless criminal, but she could never peel back that smiling mask to expose the truth.

The King parents are trying all they can to help Alice, saving up money on their side. They visit the city as often as they can to see her and offer support. If one of them could've taken her place, they would, but with Alice needing regular medical treatment from the city, and Shine taking a shine to her in particular... she was going to be stuck in the city no matter what.

Plus, there are other children in the King family who needed their parents too, Coraline especially. She also needed medical treatments... treatment that the Sunny Family offered to provide. In spite of the protests of her parents about adding to the debt, Alice wanted to help her little sister. Besides, the Sunny Family were treating her well... right?

Well, Alice insisted they did. Her family was already worried enough without knowing how how her job's "duties" slowly became a bit more involved over time, a bit more violent, and a lot more bloody.

Barbie did learn of some of the things Alice was hiding from them because of her hacking, and it infuriated her that her big sis was hiding secrets now too. Their parents told her to not worry about the debt, that it wasn't her responsibility, but fuck that! It's not Alice's responsibility either! She was the victim in all of this! The Sunny Family aren't a wholesome family running businesses, they're manipulative criminals, and Barbie is going to destroy them!

Although Barbie spends much of her time as a recluse, she does visit Alice in St. Valen's from time to time. It's how she crossed paths with a certain dog that the Sunny Family keeps on a tight leash.

The Sunny Family's Hunting Dog

As mentioned before, Bo is working for the Sunny Family as Jack's right hand man. He's an enforcer who enjoys his job. He especially enjoys the thrill of the chase, hunting down a target before brutalizing them up close and personal with his fists and fangs. Of course, he also knows how to handle a gun as well as a few other weapons. He also knows some unconventional means to torture someone if need be.

Bo has excellent hacking skills of his own, as a nod to his AI counterpart in the main universe, but he prefers to get hands on with his target whenever possible. He's aware of the hacker Clown Killer that's giving the Sunny Family some headaches, but they always evade his attempts to catch them in cyberspace, much to his frustration. They become something of a rival, his white whale that he's eager to conquer once and for all.

Not only does Bo have a lust for violence, he's also a very, very horny dog. He has slept around quite a lot, though his relationships never last. He never quite connects with anyone. He gets mistaken for only having a talent for senseless violence, the dumb muscle of the gang who is also is some good eye candy, when he's a lot smarter than his wild behavior might imply. There's a reason why he's Jack's second in command after all...

Alice intrigues Bo, simply because of how Jack is practically obsessed with her. In many ways, Jack is a rival of Bo's, being his "master" who he wants to one day be free of. Seeing Jack bend over backwards to win the heart of just some random sucker who got sweet talked into debt confuses the hell out of him. He wants to know what it is about Alice that draws Jack in... and if he can use that to his advantage.

Alice isn't a fan of Bo's constant teasing, and she hates the nickname of "squeaky toy" that he uses for her. It's in reference to how he loves to sneak up on her and startle her, causing her to squeak in surprise. Bo is really good at sneaking up on his prey, so her reaction is pretty fun.

Still, no matter how many times Bo pops in on Alice unexpectedly, he doesn't quite see what draws Jack in. Sure, she's surprisingly soft despite this hard life of crime, which is a novelty, but it's not something special. She's attractive, sure, but there's plenty just as attractive as her, if not more. He wants to dig deeper, interrogate her more, maybe even seduce her, but whenever he pushes just a little too far, Jack pulls on his metaphorical leash. Hard.

The intrigue keeps Bo coming back to ruffle Alice's feathers despite the risk. It's also why he suddenly pops up at Alice's place while Barbie is visiting one day.

Barbie is surprisingly tall compared to Alice, but Bo can see and smell the family blood between them. She's got these eyes that stand out - both of them blue and brown at the same time. She also has this cutting stare like she wants to carve open his guts. It's actually hilarious that a powderpuff from the suburbs could think she has a chance at even leaving a scratch on an alpha like him. It intrigues him enough to have a little fun teasing her as well.

Barbie shuts down Bo's flirting instantly. It trips him up a bit, as Bo knows he's a good looking guy. He's not used to being turned down in such a harsh manner, especially by someone as powerless as a puppy. He'd be offended if it wasn't so ridiculous.

When Barbie learns that Bo works with Alice, and as such is part of the Sunny Family, her dislike turns into outright hostility. She's not even hiding it either, though Alice rushes in to keep the conversation more or less civil.

After leaving the apartment, Bo decided to case the place until Barbie left. He wanted to tease her a little, scare this spoiled little pampered suburban pet before she barks at someone big and nasty who is more than ready to bite back. Despite his attempts to intimidate her, Barbie didn't even flinch, even when he made a subtle threat, just to see how she would react. Not even that shook her resolve. In fact, she warned him that if he hurt Alice, hell would feel like a sunny vacation spot compared to what she would do to Bo and the rest of the damned Sunny Family.

The threat tickled Bo instead of intimidating him, and Barbie fumed at the way he laughed her off.

It was in that exchange that Bo found himself a new toy to tease. He called Barbie puppy whenever he encountered her. She barked big, but she had no idea just how tiny and helpless she really was compared to him in his eyes. It was cute really, and he found great delight in teasing her.

However, though Bo was amused by their banter, Barbie was anything but. His teasing just made her hate him all the more.

A Hungry Dog

Over time Bo's attraction towards Barbie grows. He stops flirting with Alice, though he still teases her, mostly to learn more about Barbie and how he might win Barbie over. He feels less satisfied with the people he sleeps around with, thinking of Barbie more. He even starts imagining that it's her he's sleeping with, which kills the moment for him and leaves him feeling unfulfilled and horny.

At some point during this, Bo finds out the identity of the infamous Clown Killer. It's surprising, but so fitting that he can't help but laugh when he realizes it's none other than his puppy. My, my, such a naughty puppy too, getting up to so much mischief. It'd be a shame to let anyone else know. Then he wouldn't be able to play with her more.

It's that realization that his greatest rival is the woman who has been intriguing him that turns his attraction into downright obsession. Bo wants to conquer Barbie in every sense of the word, tame this wild puppy and make her whimper and beg for his loving touch.

Bo has obscene fantasies about the various ways he can conquer and tame Barbie. It's the more extreme side of the lines from the game, where he wants her on his leash, to be at his beck and call, ready for him whenever he wants her. (Which quickly becomes all the time, really. The man is so horny he makes Jack seem reserved.) He wants her always by his side, in his lap, hot and whining for him, begging him to take her in every one of her pretty little holes like the dirty puppy he knows that she really is. He wants to make her see that she's powerless before him and beg him to take her, to protect her. Only he can have her.

Unfortunately for Bo, Barbie isn't someone who is turned on by a self-proclaimed alpha asshole who teases her just because he's good looking and desires her. Every time he tries to proposition her or seduce her, he gets rejected, much to his increasing frustration.

It brings out Bo's yandere side more and more. He tries different schemes to win Barbie over. He would use his power and influence to impress her, make her see how much he can provide for her. He tries to show off how good looking he is, entice her to at least want his body if nothing else.

Barbie doesn't want any of it. She knows there are strings attached to anything Bo offers her. The only thing she wants is for the Sunny Family to let Alice go and never, ever bother her or the rest of their family ever again.

Sadly, that's the one thing Bo can't influence with his pull, even if he was willing to let Barbie go. Jack isn't ever going to let Alice go. Worse, he can't even pretend he's going to try and separate them, not when Alice starts dating Jack.

Barbie doesn't buy that Alice is happy with Jack. She doesn't buy Jack's super nice and generous millionaire sweetheart from a sappy romance novel schtick. After everything she's gone through to save her sister from that damn Sunny Family, there's no way Barbie is just letting Alice stay with them.

Jack is just another smiling liar, just like his mother Shine who talked Alice into signing that contract in the first place.

Bo can use this hatred for Jack though. He can try to show Barbie that he's on her side, that while he works for Jack, that doesn't mean he wants to stay a part of the Sunny Family.

In spite of Barbie's hatred, she did have encounters with Bo where he showed his softer side. St. Valen's is a dangerous place, especially for someone who has never killed before. Barbie resents being in Bo's debt even as she's grateful when he saves her life. Bo had Barbie squares away this debt with dates, which she very reluctantly accepted with the stipulation that he never touches her unless she explicitly gives him permission.

On these dates, Bo tries taking a play from Jack's book and acting more polite, more gentle with Barbie. It doesn't win her over, since she doesn't trust it, but she's not as openly hostile. Barbie also uses these dates as an attempt to sneak info on the sly that she could use against the family. It's kind of cute to Bo, that she thinks she's so slick, but she's a lot better at hiding her real motives online than she is in person. She has such a lousy poker face.

But it's cute too that she doesn't hide her real feelings. The more time Bo spends with Barbie, the more he wants her. Her scent is so appealing, so delicious. He wants to nibble on her skin, or at least get just a little lick. It's almost like she was made to drive him crazy. She's so fierce, so loyal to her family, and so in over his head. The small moments that he gets in past her walls where she softens to him, just a little, oh that makes his hope burn brighter, hotter.

Still, for every step closer he takes, something seems to pull them apart again. Usually that something is Bo and the criminal life he lives with the Sunny Family.

Puppy Love

Before Bo realizes it, he is helplessly in love, completely obsessed. It's Jack who infuriatingly points out to him that Barbie has become his weakness. Despite Bo insistence on being a lone wolf that doesn't need anybody, he is desperate to make Barbie, that grumpy barking puppy, his mate.

Which works in Jack's favor. After all, if Alice's family gets closer to his family, then she won't ever want to leave. He can also have Bo indebted to him for helping Bo win over the untamed heart of Barbie.

Barbie isn't going to make it easy for Bo, even with Jack's help. Like Alice, Barbie is on the aroace spectrum. She has to trust Bo in order to start developing real feelings for him, and it's going to take a lot of effort to get her to trust him.

Also, Barbie is the type to take charge. In the main universe, she's the one who holds Bo's leash. He might be the alpha dog, but he bows down at her feet. I imagine until she can feel secure in her dominance over Bo and trust that his love for her is stronger than his allegiance to the Sunny Family, she's not going to feel anything remotely close to attraction when it comes to him.

Still, Barbie and Bo are one of my ships, and it'd be a shame if they didn't eventually sail, even in this darker AU. It's just going to be a very slow burn.

It'll burn even slower if Bo gives in to his frustration and yandere impulses to force his puppy to stay with him. Only by rolling over and showing his soft belly will he stand a chance of seeing Barbie's softer side as well.

A bad end to their storyline would no doubt be Bo forcing Barbie to be his, through blackmail, debt, or both. Even in that situation, she wouldn't simply just submit. Trying to overpower her isn't going to win Barbie's love. Instead it'll just make her bear her fangs and fight back even more. The harder he forces her, the more desperately she fights, and the closer he pushes them both to their mutual destruction.

Of course, I'm a sucker for happy endings. So while Barbie isn't going to make it easy for Bo, I do like the idea that in spite of everything, Bo manages to slowly show her there's more to him than a blood-thirsty, horny killer. He's someone who loves deeply, is loyal, and would do anything to please her. His love for her is more real and pure than anything else he found in the city of St. Valen's, and despite all his dreams of becoming top dog, there's nothing he wants more than to be loved by his puppy.

Bo might hate to be on a leash, but he'll find it's not so bad when Barbie is the one holding onto it instead of Jack. In fact, when she's confidently in charge, she'll be a lot more inclined to reward her big bad alpha dog with some treats.

Oh, and naturally, Bo wouldn't be Bo without his breeding/seeding fetish. Once he and Barbie finally get together, he's going to want to knock her up immediately with his pups. He never gave serious thought about having kids before, but that's only because he never found someone he wanted as his mate before. He really hopes the pups his puppy gives him will have her pretty heterochromatic eyes.

I think we can wrap things up there for now. I hope you enjoyed another visit to this multi-crossover mafia AU. Let me know if you want to hear even more about this AU or any of my other story ideas and characters.

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps

[spacevixenmusic]

Unfairly Maligned Games, Vol. 3

Games I loved that got low scores, review bombed, or have some other weird negative stigma attached to them that I think is unfairly earned.

NOTE: I don't believe in giving games a number score or a letter grade. Maybe I'm just bad at criticism or very easy to please, whatever.

Indivisible [2019]

Mostly only known as the "from the makers of Skullgirls" game, Indivisible is another prime example of a game that was crowdfunded as one thing but turned into another, and gets a bad rap for its association with the ever-present controversiality of Skullgirls' creators. That said, I still think - as always - that it's crucial to view a game for what it is, not what it isn't. And what it IS is an extremely engaging mish-mash of genres and endearing characters, oozing with style and appeal, that fills a very particular void left behind by some of the most classic RPGs of a bygone era.

At its core, Indivisible is a 2D Metroidvania/RPG hybrid with an unusual battle system that plays similarly to an old PSX game series called Valkyrie Profile. During combat, each character's gauge will fill up, allowing them to take action(s). Your four party members are each assigned to one of the four face buttons on a controller (e.g. A, B, X, Y), and pressing that button will - in real-time - execute an attack on the enemy. Using it in combination the D-Pad allows for several different types of attack. All party members' attacks can overlap simultaneously, allowing you to string together combos to really rack up the damage, or juggle enemies to prevent counterattacks and break their defenses. The Metroidvania and platforming portion comprises the rest of the game, with a heavy focus on using those same action skills to scale massive environments, solve platforming puzzles, and dodge spikes. Typical Metroidvania stuff.

Story-wise, in our modern world of RPGs that is dominated almost exclusively by Japanese and Scandinavian narratives, Indivisible is breath of fresh air that focuses heavily on South and East Asian mythology and themes. Heavy inspiration is taken from the cultures of India, Tibet, Mongolia, and the South Pacific. This is reflected not only in the characters and their various ethnicities, but in the game's approach to spirituality, reincarnation, second chances, and being a teenager hellbent on destroying god. Our main protagonist Ajna is a teenager studying martial arts who isn't quite as in touch with her spirituality as her mentor would like her to be. When war strikes the land and burns her home to the ground, she gets pissed and sets out on a quest for retribution, discovering in the process that she actually does possess certain godlike powers of destruction, and also that she can absorb certain people into her head, which is just a cute way of lampshading having a Party System.

I've seen Reviewers and big Opinion-Havers on the internet criticize the game's writing for having a bull-headed protagonist who boldly rushes into confrontation, unleashing her wanton destruction without first considering the catastrophic consequences for civilians. It's almost like they've forgotten what being a teenager and making poor choices is like. But I say fuck 'em. I say we need MORE stories about uninformed teenagers with immense godlike powers and no sense of nuance making rash decisions and fucking up royally. That alone is crucial to understanding the rest of the game's themes about atonement, reincarnation, and understanding why you believe what you believe in. That's what Indivisible is all about. In many ways, I feel like Ajna shares a common story arc with Korra from the Avatar series, and it's very cool to see how she learns to deal with the damage she's caused and what insight that gives her when facing down the Big Bad.

Of course, what is a good story without characters to flesh it out? The characters in this game are absolutely charming and multifaceted, coming from a wide array of different cultures and personalities, many of which are vastly underrepresented in not only RPGs but video games in general. Personal favorites include, but are not limited to, big booba water mom Thorani (based on a buddhist deity of the same name), Leilani the Hawaiian sharknado (spins around in a cyclone attack using a leiomano, a Hawaiian shark-tooth sword), lesbian pirate mom Baozhai (based on the famous Chinese pirate Ching Shih), and of course, local nihilistic swamp witch Razmi (a loose mishmash of Korean and Persian Zoroastrian shamans). The full cast of characters is enormous (well over 20 playable ones alone), and each one comes with a unique moveset and playstyle that not only keeps gameplay interesting, but matches their personality and the role they play in the story.

But if there's one thing I truly want to focus on when I gush about this game, it's this. Indivisible has one thing over most other games of its genre, something that modern RPGs in particular suffer heavily from a severe lack of, and that's its strong commitment to multiculturalism. Indivisible made a clear decision to not only feature characters from around the globe, but to blend their cultures together in interesting and exciting ways that don't diminish or water them down. Every character is allowed to shine in their own way without diluting what makes them stand out in the first place, which is why you can have a game that features a gunblade-wielding cowboy, a Namibian songstress, an armless Chinese dancer, a Kamen Rider knock-off, and a Mongolian archer who people keep mistaking for Pearl from Steven Universe. This sort of melting-pot cultural stew used to be common in classic anime and 90s RPGs, but kind of fell out of fashion with the rise of gacha waifu games and Elder Scrolls derivatives. Now more than ever, I feel like Indivisible is exactly the sort of injection the gaming world needs to rekindle those flames of pure imagination that the old classic era brought us.

All that said, one of the biggest reasons Indivisible will always have a dark mark next to its name is of course due to the fact that its lead designer (the studio head) was involved in a sexual harassment case that resulted in everyone on the team either quitting or being laid off, and the rights to the work and characters getting lost in the shuffle. Additionally, the game was still finished and released as intended, but did not feature any of the guest star characters that were promised during crowdfunding, most of whom were indie darlings of the time (Shovel Knight, Hyper Light Drifter, and Super Time Force to name a few). Naturally, this has left a sour taste in many folks' mouths, so it is somewhat understandable why the game would have a negative stigma attached. There are also a few bizarre and possibly off-putting cameos hidden among the NPCs (a few outdated meme references and Zone-tan, of all people), but these are entirely skippable and serve only as background extras.

Sour grapes aside though, I wholeheartedly recommend Indivisible for anyone looking for a fresh take on action RPGs. The neat hybridization of Metroidvania and real-time RPG with fighting game mechanics gives it a very unique identity, and if the compelling spirituality of the story doesn't grab you, the charm of the characters absolutely will. It certainly took me for a ride. My only word of caution is to follow the game's own suggestion and get good at Blocking in combat as early as you can!

[moomingitz]

I don't really care about the possibility of whacking metaphorical hornet's nest, so I'm going to say it:

I hope they give Amy's "Not All Humanity" speech to Shadow to someone else, not only to listen to fans throw a fit over it again(Sonic X did it better, and I will never apologize for saying that), but in the case of what we've seen in the movies, I think it's far more fitting narrative and character wise for Sonic himself to do it here considering his backstory in this canon. I already thought it felt forced in SA2 and like it was just there to give Amy something to do in the game's story, and it would only just feel like it was for the sake of ticking off a Memberberry fan service box in the upcoming movie then what would make sense narratively at this point.

If I'm going to be even more honest with my unpopular Sonic related opinions, aside from Rouge, I rather they not introduce anymore characters in the third movie and just focus on further fleshing out the ones they currently have. A criticism I still hold towards the second movie is how they introduced all of this new stuff at once and made it feel more cluttered and less focused than the first movie, especially in the case of making Sonic's development with Tails feel more rushed and more of the same thing from the first movie- to the point where Sonic's bonding with Tails reusing the same story beats with Sonic bonding with Tom. There's the very high likelihood of Robotnik not even returning in Sonic 3, and they're straight up skipping the first Sonic Adventure game to adapt and getting right to Shadow, so why not take even more liberties with the story?

[thatcatbasil]

Hi basil!!!! ( ᵔ▽ᵔ)/ I was wondering... if you were in charge of a new rain world dlc and could do anything you wanted with it, what do you think you'd do? Feel free to get as detailed or vague as you'd like! Conversely, would you want to rewrite/remake anything of the current base game/already released dlcs?

GOOD QUESTION yeah for starters when it comes to changing established stuff in the base game or dlc the immediate first thing i'd do is blast hunter longlegs out of existence... i never was into the "hunter has rot" interpretation, and i think rot's far more interesting when it's left as an iterator exclusive phenomenon. it's the main thing that really grounds pebbles and humanizes him despite his existence as what's essentially an incomprehensible computer god made of metal and flesh, and being like "actually! other animals can get the rot too" kinda takes away that whole appeal to me tbh

since i'm not sure if i ever really went into detail on here: my interpretation is that hunter's dying from something akin to blood coagulation--nsh injected his own genetic material in the form of iterator blood (or whatever iterators have that's their equivalent of blood) as some kind of attempt to self-ascend after moon's disappearance from the local group. he's killing two birds with one stone--the primary goal's to try and save moon, of course, but it's worth it seeing if he can attempt to ascend himself as well, especially when everyone's systems are gonna eventually break down and die out. this could very easily turn into an infodump about my interpretations of hunter and nsh but i'm gonna try not to go on too much of a tangent here!

(by the way... if you look really closely at this scene from hunter's ending, you can see she's got some faint greenish veins on her body.)

speaking of nsh, as much as i'd want to say that i want more nsh in canon, the more i think about it, i think i like the idea of him being left as a huge mystery and his exact intentions being left unclear and all that. in original canon all we have is that chatlog where he's messing around during that serious discussion and his pearl message to moon where he expresses that bit of concern but still has a bit of a playful face on. i liked what downpour did with his private broadcasts to moon where he's completely mask off and being emotionally vulnerable with her. but i think that knowing more and more about the iterators kinda takes away from the whole "you're a creature in a world you can never fully understand" appeal that rain world has. as much as i really adored downpour from a gameplay perspective (plus it was great to get more official rain world content) i think that the majority of the campaigns being so focused around the iterators is the primary issue i have with it lore/story wise. it does makes sense why they went that route though, especially considering its origins as a fanmade mod, since the iterators were always one of the things that everyone had the most questions about.

but a new rain world dlc... i'd just want to see more and more of the ecosystem and the creatures that live there more than anything! specifically i'd want to see more marine life besides the jetfish and leviathans. i've always been really curious about what an actual ocean in rain world would be like (since shoreline's technically just moon's flooded grounds.... what if it's like a massive tide pool near an actual ocean and pebbles's rain was what made the water level rise enough for the jetfish and leviathans to swim in? then the tide fell and they were isolated in there... you can't help but wonder what other sea critters might be out there haha)

[eldritchmochi]

Hi its the anon that keeps poking you about cs again! All of those ideas are great and just so the pain of fanfic often sort of being what would be a novel first draft by being episodic, but I feel like you could so weave in a tonne of this stuff past now anyway. Especially the cane leaning, im a cane user too and I totally get it, how my partner handles my cane is just.... it feels different to anyone else. Like they get to touch my body differently to anyone else and that applies to my cane too since that really sort of a part of my body??

the inherent eroticism of ur partner touching u(r cane) i should make a zine about this lmao

rn i am considering how much if any retouching i wanna do of the existing 260k of coping skills cos yeah, the struggle of fanfic essentially being the first draft of a novel. usually it doesnt get me too bad since a) i generally fully complete a fic before posting so i do have a chance to go back and adjust things here and there & 2) i really havent ever cared to redraft something in the more traditional sense and iii) i basically never write things over 100k let alone anything substantially over 100k

one of the options im considering would involve a fairly big overhaul where i pull out the individual arcs and flesh em out with additional scenes for better pacing, and then repost as a series with shorter individual fics (with the og in tact as is, just with a note). ive had several people tell me theyve balked at the length of this damned fic, especially since its barely half done plot wise for JUST this specific already plotted chunk of the whole shebang. it has quite possibly gotten a smiiiidge out of control lmao but its been a great learning experience and i am Determined to finish it

however, i am ALSO considering filing the serial numbers off this fic once its done. i absolutely plan on redrafting the whole thing with a bunch of developmental editing work so the end result would almost certainly be a very different form of the story from the fic as it is now. im still unsure of how much of the rework i have in my head i want to put on the internet as Coping Skills: The Fic tho. its really important to me that, whatever i end up doing, i keep this monster available on the internet as a fanfic cos i am well aware of how much it means to a lot of folks

at the same time though theres a lot of backend stuff i could build into the cs2.0 idea that would make writing the rest of the story a LOT easier, which would make dev edits and redrafting easier bc ill be starting with something that has more structure, etc

theres balance somewhere i just haven't found it yet, HOWEVER im absolutely gonna be stuck til i figure it out. im a plantser when it comes to plot, im more than happy to figure out the path to a fairly nebulous endgoal, but i struggle to write stuff if i dont have a good idea of the overall structure of how i tell the story, like pattern of pov shifts and theming, which definitely got a bit away from me the last like 80k lmao

[quibbs126]

Okay so I ended up actually finishing off this page today

So do you remember when I talked about wanting to make Legally Distinct Transformers sometime after watching Transformers One like 2 weeks ago? Well I actually did start trying to make their designs afterwards, but then I ended up losing interest. But then listening to the Transformers Prime theme song on loop got my brain a-thinking about these guys again, so I went back and tried to at least make some of the designs in my head

Right now this is what I have in mind for their designs. The basics are that they have solid eye colors (I just shaded them like CRK to give them some more life), skin that's at least the color of metal, which tends to be grey but can be other colors as seen, and also hair. Maybe hair doesn't make the most sense, especially considering they are still supposed to be made of metal, even if it is living and malleable, but listen. When I was originally internally thinking of designs for these guys, golden guy there specifically had long, wavy, luscious golden locks, and I had to keep that. So they have hair now. Also pointy ears because why not

They also have those square cores in the middle that are the same color as their eyes, which is basically supposed to be like their heart/power source

As mentioned, they are still metal alien things like Transformers, and they still have transforming capabilities. I don't know what specifically they transform into though, at least as some sort of alternate mode. They can just transmute their metal at will into other things, like weapons if they so choose. Also most of their world is also made of living metal, so with some reformatting they can turn anything into a weapon or some other object, including severed limbs

So far, I really don't feel like I've gotten distinct enough with these guys, both in design and concept. Also their designs just aren't really that unique or special in any way, just in general. But I don't know, I don't really know what to do with these guys design wise. I think you people know I never really get too weird with my designs, at least not now. It's pretty much just humans and mostly human looking beings. I know I need to get out of that more but I just don't know how

I also want to give them clothes in some way, but I don't know what to do on that front either. They're all naked right now, but that doesn't really mean anything here since they don't really have private parts. At least not yet anyways. I'm not giving them boobs or anything though. But yeah, they maybe wear clothes, mostly because I don't know how else to make them distinct, but I don't know what kind of clothes to give them

Something I'm realizing is with the Transformers, generally what makes them the most distinct is their head/helmet design, as well as what's around their body that's part of their alternate mode. But since I don't really know what I'm doing with these guys, I don't know how to incorporate that

I don't know, I think I should move on to a different topic, I'm just repeating myself on the design front. I don't know what I'm doing and I am not skilled enough to make these guys anything exceptional, even if my brain wants to do stuff with them

I guess we can talk about character stuff? Though granted, we still only have one character named, that being (tentatively) Howler, whom I'll mention later

I've mentioned this before, but basically as a refresher, Purple and Gold here are fighting a civil war, after their people had an uprising against the previous tyrannical leader

Basically the story I have right now is that the two started out very close, at some point joining against the ruling class to elicit change and revolution for their people. Also, they were in fact, gay and in love. But then during one encounter, likely after saving Purple, Gold gets captured by their enemy and basically left to be tortured and die in some horrible punishment place they have or something. I haven't fleshed out the details of this place yet. But it did lead to him getting horribly mutilated with his eye being ripped out and by the end of it, half of his face being basically gone and ripped apart. I have this very distinct vision of him having this red line (same color as his eye) going all the way from the top of his head to at least his neck. Meanwhile, Purple and their other allies tried to get him back but failed, and they rallied more forces and eventually lead an assault on the ruling class in revolution

This is also where Gold came back, having basically done the impossible of surviving that place he got sent to, and also bringing other survivors from there to basically be the cavalry and the two both working together to defeat their tyrannical leader

But they differed when left to decide what to do after, and how do deal with the ruler, Gold's experiences making him more ruthless, leading him to personally execute their former ruler and have some sort of altercation that left Purple with his arm now gone. His yellow one is a replacement he got sometime after this fight

This event sparked the creation of the two sides of this new civil war, with both disagreeing on how they deal with the rest of the ruling class and the structure of the government going forward. But also, for Purple and Gold, who are either the leaders of the movements or people with high standing in both sides, the conflict is very personal, since they both feel personally betrayed by the other

So yeah, basically Transformers, particularly One

I really need to work on making them more distinct from Transformers, I really do. I know I eventually was able to do that with Ralia, but that was over the course of at least two years, and was when I was in junior high, aka I had a lot less responsibilities, and I actually had creative juices back then as opposed to the constant drought of nowadays. Also my attention span is even lower, and I'll probably forget these guys yet again before I do anything meaningful

But anyways, I guess we talk about the last person here, aka Howler?

To be honest I don't entirely know what her name means. I think in my brain she was originally Sparrow or Raven, but then I wanted to change it, and so my brain thought Nightshade, then Night Howler (like from Zootopia), which then just got shortened to Howler. But it's a name, so I'll take it

Note that Purple and Gold are not the characters' actual names, they're just placeholders because I don't have any for them

Basically Howler's whole deal is that she suspiciously looks like Purple and Gold's love child. She's on Gold's side of the war, and is a younger member who's quick and good with knives. Gold also does treat her nicely, though they never refer to each other by a familial connection, but also Gold isn't evil like Megatron is supposed to be, and he's not horrible to the people who serve under him, unless he just doesn't like them. She is also supposed to be young enough that she was born after the war has started, although very early on in its timeframe

In my brain, because it's also for some reason an actual series someone watches, Howler's relation to the two is supposed to be something people commonly theorize/headcanon, but at least at the beginning of the story, isn't outright stated, and I've left it semi-ambiguous in my mind. But I think I'm going with the idea that yes, she is

Also the specific setup is that Purple isn't aware of their relation and Howler maybe hasn't specifically been told of Purple's relation to her, because Gold was the one that had her and this was not that long after their split, so emotions were kind of running high for him and he didn't feel like doing that out of spite

Also don't ask me how they reproduce. I guess it's sexually based on Howler, but I'm not sure I want to think about the whole process of it. They're made of metal, but it's also supposed to be living metal or some sort of metal-like alien substance, so they have some amount of organic-ness to them. But gender doesn't matter with them, or at the very least their concept of gender is different than ours and lets this be a thing

I'm not sure I have much else to talk about, so I guess I'm done here. I just wanted to talk about these guys I suppose. I like them and I want to do more with them, but I struggle with drawing them, or at least making designs of them that aren't just really boring and uninspired

[the-s1lly-corner]

I wish to hear about the knd oc

>:3c

Give us the lore Silly!!!!

Sososo sorry for taking so long to get to this! Admittedly I was putting this off simply because theres so much lore! I'll be adding a cut to this because with me summarizing stuff, it's still a lot! I'll try to break it up in sections, since there are different.. chapters... for lack of a better word.. this ocs entire life is plotted out! From early childhood to present day when the show takes place! That's a lot of lore considering the character is well into adulthood by the time the main series happens!

Apologies if it's all over the place and some points are.. whack.. this is my first time putting everything into writing! I'll also need to talk about other ocs so this main one can make sense, mostly it'll be talking about their sector, in regards to other ocs! Also its 3am at the time of writing this + my stomach is being MEAN

With all that said, let's hope this doesnt turn into a novel!

Also also** lore may contradict what's in canon, maybe.. I'm not sure! I'm still not done reading the comics and I havent touched anything GKND so I'm unsure if theres any extra info that in unaware of that would complicate things

Feel free to send any questions about the oc!! Lore stuff, interactions with canon characters, ect!

cws: mentions of controlling/toxic parents but i dont go too in depth about it but just know that this is a part of her story. mentions of sexism as well, obligatory its there because "admin uses his ocs to process his experience with his gender as well as being afab and other stuff" but i dont go toooooo deep into it

Name; Rose Wood

Pronouns; she/her

Age; obviously since we're sliding around all over her time line I'll let you know based in the section... but shes in the same age group as Benedict and Monty

Appearance, present day; short, rocking a chubby mom bod! Red hair that's a little faded with a prominent streak of grey. Green eyes. Very curly and fluffy hair! Not sold on a length, but currently it's just last her shoulders! Often wears cardigans or sweaters, though I'm yet to make an "official" outfit for her... her default outfit! Short :( she stopped growing in her early/mid teens height wise, about 5'5

Appearance, KND era; assuming this is in the later half of her time as a KND operative shes tall by kid standards (assuming like. 4'6 is the average for girls as google is telling me). Lanky!! Very long hair, hair is more vibrant but that's really just a design choice rather than an in universe thing. Hair changes length, it starts at mid back but she cuts it to her jaw a few months before shes decommissioned. No default outfit but she swaps between her school uniform and baseball uniform (sports kid before her dad made her stop!!)

Personality; very sweet and kind, patient.. however shes no nonsense, though that develops slowly over time and really roots and shows itself in her young adult years. Lots of internalized feelings, as a child and teen, she feels she had to suck it up and put on a happy face because to do anything else would be "unbecoming", at least according to her parents. As an adult shes oblivious to the whole child vs adult war and doesnt realize how serious it is, shes just vibing

Occupations, past and current; knd operative (decommissioned), teacher (current)

Family; she doesnt talk to her parents all that much however she keeps in touch with her grandfather (very old, think 80s, rose was an oops baby + so was her dad LMAO), and 2 younger sisters. She does have other family members however they're not very fleshed out currently. She does have a son who is a teen by the time the main series takes place! Maybe I'll make a short follow up post on him!

Former Sector teammates, numbers and names; Numbuh 246 (Rose Wood), Numbuh 165 (Jamie Robinson), Numbuh 162 (Kimberly "Kimmy" Wilson), Numbuh 527 ("Sammy" Jones), Numbuh 129 (Davis Peterson) (the leader of the sector)

i'll probably make a separate post for her teammates, this post is already pretty long LMAO

KND days;

she joined within the very early days of the KND, after monty started it. i would go further and say shes a "first generation" knd operative, being there when they fought and overthrew grandfather. she didnt actually join a sector until the last year or two of her time as an operative, working solo prior on missions and helping built up the operation. thanks to her experience, she was sent to go basically work and "pass off her knowledge" before shes decommissioned.

a actually wrote in parallels between her sector and sector v for thematic reasons but i wont get into that here; but if i had to make a comparison shes like the numbuh 5 of the group. fairly level headed and in tune with whats going on as well as being able to step up when it counts to push through on a mission

"if she was sent to basically pass her experience, why wasnt she made the leader?". tight schedule on her part, parents cared a lot about keeping up appearances and they worked rose like a horse by having her sign up to a bunch of extra curriculars + her having her share of chores as well as her parents being strict. she just did not have a lot of time to spare. a lot of her ark is her slowly becoming more and more independent as time passes, but as of now shes pulling herself between being this model student to appease her parents and fighting for the knd's cause. ironic given the whole fighting against adult tyranny thing

there was some friction in the beginning when she first joined the sector, shes the second newest member the newest being 527 (Sammy). a lot of coming from 165 (Jamie), actually throws her failures in her face if they ever fumble a mission because of her whole history. they do eventually become buddies though, but its a slow burn!

she does get what she was sent to do done before she turns 13, her decommissioning is your standard decommissioning albeit with some pizzazz; she was a first gen operative but she was one of the last remaining ones at that time so its like. a whole chapter ending in their history with only a handful of others remaining. she doesnt get to be a secret operative

Teenager;

probably the most underdeveloped part of her story, i mostly focused on her childhood as well as the present day.. so this section and early adulthood is a little under baked. a lot of the themes as before are still here, overbearing and controlling strict parents completely dominate her time so she doesnt have much time to just. be. she does end up reconnecting with some of her old teammates, but theyre all of course decommissioned at this point in time. the only one who is still an operative is sammy, but thats due to them being so young in comparison to the rest of the sector and even then theyre at the end of their time as an operative. due to the whole "operatives arent to mess with the lives of ex operatives" rule thats mentioned, sammy doesnt interact much with rose or the others unless they approach them first.

main thing to note is that rose and davis have a short fling that quickly burns out due to teens being dumb: short explanation davis was insecure and jealous and rose did not want to deal with that on top of everything else going on with her. good for her for looking out for her health

she was not an evil teen, though, far too deep in her studies to really do anything rebellious as well as being afraid of falling behind and disappointing her parents

around this time, not long after her and davis break up her and her family moves out of town

Young adult;

she went NC with her parents not long after she turned 18, moving out soon after. she does keep in touch with her younger siblings, though. the breaking point was really her parents confirming that theyre disappointed with her existence. literally all but saying they wish they had a son instead of a daughter as a first born, lots of old values/views there that finally pushes rose over the edge. noting now that rose did have some feelings about her gender but never really explored it due to feeling the need to conform + this takes place pre 2000s so... but moving forward she does start to embrace herself and slowly take the time to get to know herself now that shes got the time and space to do so. i do like the idea of her experimenting between now and present day, and while she does eventually lean more towards presenting feminine there are instances where shes presenting more masc/feels more masc

while at college she meets someone, obligatory "i havent given him a name yet", they get together. everythings good, they have a kid. they break up. im still cooking up a reasoning for why they split but for now its just "they changed because they got married young, and now theyre older"

Present day;

a few years before the events of the show she moves back to town, i was going to say she moves in during the current events but i decided to be nice and give her a chance to get accustomed to being back in her hometown. i havent decided how it happens but she ends up getting in with the villains but like. not in the way that shes a villain too, in the "shes like the nice lady from down the street who makes some killer brownies so we all vibe with her". kind of just started as a joke that i turned into the canon for her because i can... kind of see that happening... this leads to her meeting benedict, blah blah she vaguely remembers him, they catch up and it leads to them getting together

i actually didnt originally ship them because "ooooooooouuugh father kinda...." actually it was because "the delightfuls need a decent parent figure because GOD!! i love father and my take on him does soften him a bit with time but GOOD LORD" and then it mixed with that and the "ooooooough hes kinda..." LMAO

not much to say other than shes the cool mom at the PTA meetings and just gets along with everyone, probably thinks the delightfuls and sector v are friends. which drives both of them up the wall they HATE it LMAO

Post series finale;

Dead/j

Okay well, that's just a concept. Admittedly I dont know what to do with her after the series finale takes place. Logically one can assume she just continues on with her day to day because shes not really involved in the fight against children, shes quite literally. Vibing and staying in her own lane asides from when she gets dragged into things by the people around her; even then shes still.. oblivious.. not much different than how Monty reacts to the knd stuff, when hes not recommissioned. Simply thinking it's this elaborate game of sorts, ESPECIALLY if she were to get dragged in through the delightfuls (who are. You know, effectively her step children thanks to her relationship with father)

[tennessoui]

Sorry if this has been asked before but have you ever considered posting your tumblr fics on ao3? I only ask because sometimes navigating tumblr can be awful, especially on mobile. No pressure though. I just really love your writing and want to read as much as possible.

hey thank you so much for asking! I currently do not have any plans to move all of my tumblr fics to ao3, but I assure you I’ve thought about it.

I view my tumblr writing as very different from my ao3 writing, which is why it feels like a big deal for me when I start a fic on ao3 that i fleshed out as an au or series of ficlets on tumblr. Putting it on ao3 means committing to the details, the story format, the moment in time of the plot I want to tell.

Take the regency au for example. That’s a series of ficlets on tumblr, but I would love to one day put a story up on ao3 for it. But if I put the ficlets up now in the same format I created the KUWSK ao3 fic (aka ficlets set in the same verse but not necessarily in chronological order), I would feel trapped by the format and I wouldn’t ever be able to post it in a traditional story format….if I one day figure out how I want that story to start. Do I delete the ao3 fic of the disconnected ficlets? Do I repost scenes and pretend they’re all new scenes? Do I just start posting the new chronological story at the end of that ao3 fic?

Tumblr fic posting feels more fluid to me because I’m just writing disconnected moments in an au and I always link them in the tag — and I have a master list of tumblr fics here — so if I get something wrong continuity wise it’s not that big of a deal, and I can jump around to whatever moment I want to tell at any time.

For me, it’s not just reposting a piece of writing from tumblr to ao3– it involves me thinking about what I want this story to look like (ie, the hunger games au on ao3 will be set in space; the playmaker au may involve a journalist obi-wan instead of a detective obi-wan) instead of what disjointed moment i feel like writing.

So it is something I promise I have thought of, and it’s something I’m not interested in at this time. If I were to ever delete my blog and orphan my fics, I’d make a concentrated effort to move some if not all of the writing here over to ao3 for people to save as they’d like, but that’s sort of the only scenario I think I would do that in

[emma-is-swaggy-and-epic]

Y'know what, since i've fleshed out my new OCs a bit more i think it's time to explain them more in-detail! Starting with my danganronpa OC: yuriko togami (so needless to say: SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA AHEAD!!!)

I have complete character sheets of her as well as my other OCs on arts and OCs amino (my username on there is VixinTrix)

Oh, and also i feel i need to prefice this by saying that the only danganronpa game i've played so far is trigger happy havoc. I've watched a youtube video a long time ago explaining ALL of the lore but i've tried to forget most of it so that it doesn't ruin my experience playing through the games so i may get some stuff about the game's lore wrong with this character, like i'm not sure if byakuya actually DID rebuild the togami corporation or if people just SAY that he did as a joke considering i only ever see people mention it in the comment sections of meme videos....but i mean...either way i guess it doesn't matter considering yuriko's mother CANONICALLY DIED BEFORE SHE COULD EVEN BE CONCIEVED so she's already not following established lore in that regard...

Yuriko (yuri for short) comes from a danganronpa AU where celestia ludenberg never died (how and why that is the case is up for your interpretation) and she eventually got married to byakuya, resulting in them having a daughter....that daughter, of course, being yuri!

Yuri was born as the heiress of the togami corporation, she lived a sheltered life so she never really had any friends aside from a borzoi puppy she got for her 13th birthday. Growing up all people could really see her as when they met her was just the daughter of celeste and byakuya so she felt the need to prove to the world that she was more than that so she took up chess and constantly practiced every chance she could, which eventually earned her the alias of the ultimate chess master

Personality-wise, yuriko comes off as very cold and harsh much like her parents though it's less "i'm so much better than you and i don't think you deserve my respect" but more "i genuinely do not care about anything that's going on and i just want to be left alone" which means she doesn't really emote much, but when she does she looks absolutely unhinged (think omori's battle portraits in omori)

Despite this however, yuri is very gentle and is quick to crack a joke when she needs to...though it's kind of hard to tell considering she always talks in a very monotone voice (my voice claim for her is simGM's portrayal of kourtney kardashian) plus she LOVES dogs more than anything and will sob uncontrollably if she sees a puppy

Due to the stress of being the heiress of the togami corporation and nobody seeming to care about her aside from who her parents are, she took up smoking weed sometime later in life and she became almost dependant on the substance (and yes, while i know smoking is a VERY SERIOUS thing, i feel like i need to mention that i got the idea of making her a stoner because before i actually drew her design, i liked making jokes about her recreating the "420 gucci gang, my mom took my vape" meme and stuff like that and it kinda just stuck)

Also like, a few days after i made her i realized i accidentally just reinvented my little nightmares OC myrtle soooo.....

Though in my defense, myrtle and yuriko MAY look similar and have similar character motivations but I ASSURE YOU THEY'RE TOTALLY DIFFERENT!!! See, myrtle is a pretentious emo brat who takes things way too seriously and her whole story is her trying to fix the universe after she created a dimensional merge with her reality bending powers. YURIKO is a dog-loving stoner who plays chess and simply doesn't give a shit about anything

Also if you think about it, yuriko is pretty much just shaggy from scooby doo....they're both stoners with pet dogs who come from rich families....not only that but considering yuri is a DANGANRONPA OC, that also means she probably solves mysteries....god fucking dammit...

[streettealee]

TLH The Hunger Games AU

@ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone figured I would put this in a new post. All of my ideas are kind of vague, incoherent, but the one concrete thing I know I'd want from this THG AU is for Matthew Fairchild to take the place of Peeta Mellark within the narrative. Are they rather different people at first glance? Yes. But that makes the way they interact with the story interesting. I mean, if we were doing this based on Which Character Are They Most Like, I think I'd argue Matthew should replace Finnick, and yet, that's not what I want. I want Matthew to be an artistic baker boy with gold hair, a nice smile, and a way with people - that works. I also think he has a mind for politics that we only glimpsed in TLH (remember when Cordelia pointed out that she would have thought Matthew would make a great ambassador for the Nephilim in Downworlder relations in France? I do think she was right in that he would have done a much better job than Charles). His personality suits Peeta's in those regards. I'm curious about what your thoughts might be carrying on from there - how Matthew's differences might change certain things. I don't trust myself to delve into that yet.

As for other characters, I have not a lot of ideas. Katniss is one I really don't know. It could be interesting, actually, if we had Esme Hardcastle in her role and she was fleshed out more as a character. Because if you think about the way she went from mundane life to ascension, it could mirror some of the themes from Katniss' life in poverty and as an 'outsider'. Briefly, I considered perhaps James being in Katniss' place (with Lucie being Prim (my heart is breaking all over again at just the thought, oof)), because personality-wise he could fit, but at the same time... I also don't think he does? The James of a THG AU would be very different from the young man we've come to know in canon, in my opinion, as his familial support would be lacking in a huge way, and overall, I struggle to see him being as reluctantly drawn to Matthew (in the romantic sense) within the bounds of this AU like Katniss is to Peeta, if that makes sense. I'd maybe be more intrigued to see, say, Esme in Katniss' place as she befriends James who is instead from another district and so we have some of that same friendship I think that we saw from the Shadowhunter Academy. I don't know, AUs do have a lot of wiggle room, depending on how one wants to conduct them, so we can still have a James and Matthew close friendship in some form.

Anna Lightwood could be Finnick Odair. No one is really going to change my mind on this. Ariadne could be Annie Cresta.

Christopher as Beetee? Grace as Wiress? Not necessarily that they are them but that they assume their roles in the narrative and bring their own character to them (same as pretty much everyone else, but just thought I'd put that reminder here while we're going through this).

Thomas and Alastair I am stuck on because I just don't know. Most Thomastair fans would just want them to be the Katniss and Peeta dynamic, and I hear you, and this AU is a matter of who you want to be the focus, I suppose, at this point. There's already a lot of Thomastair AUs though and this THG one was first inspired by Matthew as Peeta, so I'm very attached to that.

It feels too basic to create fully human versions of Belial and Lilith to just dub them President Snow and Coin respectively, you know? Instead, I might actually put forward for consideration Bridgestock (we are pretending in this AU that he is not Ariadne's adoptive father and he's just some guy) as Snow, with Charles (under, perhaps, a different surname?) as Coin. Tatiana feels too unstable for either role, and Charles can be removed as Matthew's brother to be this other political figure, because I think he would suit the theme and Coin's arc. But I'm also not as satisfied with this idea. There are a lot of characters in THG and the TLH cast does not easily slip into it. And I'd prefer them to fit in this other way rather than just... throwing the entire cast into an arena and calling it a THG AU because it feels almost cheap.

Anyway, my brain has turned to mush again, I can do no more. Might add later, but please share your own ideas (open to anyone, though I tagged and spoke mostly to @ibrushmyteeth-donttellanyone because the idea came up first when they asked me about something else).

[aaeds]

While we settle down until the gavel drops on the series,

Here’s a reminder, to those who like the show and haven’t, to pick up the books and give them a go. 

Lockwood & co in my opinion was given the best adaptation by one of the best crews and casts. I’ll never be a purist and adaptations will always deviate from the original content, while picking them up again for another read I didn’t feel robbed of their core concepts.

That said, the first two books which are covered in season one have so much more content (what might have been considered filler) to flesh out the real horrors and nature of the story and what the world is all about. The final 3 do as well, and they’re worth the time and effort. 

The parallels that can be drawn from each character to a counter organization are subtle but well done, from familiar traits to what each character lacks individually and gains as a cohesive group to round themselves out to do and be better. And though it’s not as overt as the series, Lucy and Lockwood are not so subtle for readers to miss a connection that runs deeper than any YA novel on book-tok. Love and belonging will always be hallmarks of character development, along with trust and solidarity. (Also please think more deeply about the Holly and Lucy dynamic, please. There are some hot takes that just make me want to die from a critical reading standing.)

Which, speaking of subtle but intense - there’s a scene in The Creeping Shadow (I believe) which describes depression without actually acknowledging depression itself through Lucy’s POV. I think it’s very unique and personal where the horrors become more human than ghost. Truly the emotional constipation is a sight to behold on page but it all really comes down to their profession. When Jacobs writes off an agent’s death in the series to Lucy’s remark (George's in the book I believe) to Kipp’s high mortality rate you can see that even the protagonists understand their worth in society is lauded - but expendable. In the books the characters are much younger, Lucy was 8 when she started and her mother no less neglectful or emotionally abusive. She has six sisters, where Lucy is the youngest, and all the signs are indicative of a life of working for approval or love. Pride, as a small child, that she has worth and something to be recognized for in an industry - which is terrifying.

My interpretation of Norrie over the addition of 6 sisters was to show how Lucy feels she must apply herself for attention and how that attention can be gone in an instant without rhyme or reason and how the Problem has robbed her a great many things - namely connections to the living. Norrie was a great representation of something she didn’t have to work for and found a responsible, wise sort of love she never had in her family. Someone who looked after her and later trusted with her life, their relationship wasn’t entirely professional. Lucy found her ‘family’ in her work life after being alienated from a normal one. Lockwood calling her an asset was akin to her mother’s signing her up as a dependent into Jacob’s company for money.  Though a misunderstanding, it showed they all still had a fair ways to go from being fully on the same page as as team and as friends. There are growing pains in the script which aren’t quite in the books - but there are plenty of pages to show everyone’s character development over time. 

Also Kipps is one of my odd but favourite characters in a sympathetic sense. He was a genius addition to the crew from another angle of the industry as an older agent. What does one do when their talents are fading and you lack a full education? How much more can you be exploited?  I could type until my hands fall off about how much I love the running themes in these books and how interwoven it all is with the characters and how they grow. I am hoping for a season 2, but if you are new here and haven’t yet and we won’t get a season 2 - do yourselves a favour and get closure by reading the books. They’re truly like a piñata of all the good things adventure should have and that were (largely) fairly left out of the tv adaptation for the sake of time.  And now I have to go cry or draw fanart or write a fanfiction.